Back to Alajärvi

Today was my last day at Emilia's house. She was in work most of the day at a candy shop in town, so I worked on updating my blog and getting caught up on emails and the like. It was pretty chill. That evening, Emilia drove me back to Alajärvi, to the Peltomäkis, my third host family, who I stayed with for a few days. It was nice to see everyone again and get all caught up.

The week with them went by pretty quickly. I hope this is in the correct order, but I don't remember exactly when what happened, so bear with me. This week I got to bike around town with my host brother Antton. We stopped by his grandparents house and then showed me the newly renovated health center, because otherwise there is nothing new in Alajärvi. We also went to Vimpeli to watch my host brother Eemil's pesäpallo game, which Alajärvi won. Antton, my host brother, and I had lunch and ice cream and coffee with Reija's dad and Reija's sister and her daughter Lilia came by to visit. Lilia, who is now currently four has grown a lot in the time I've been away, so it was nice to see her again, although she didn't remember me. We stopped by Reija's parents house and had some coffee and treats. Also, one day, Teppo's mom came over and made lunch for Antton and me which was really nice.

On Thursday, I got a chance to bike around Alajärvi. I biked by my old lukio, near the Alajärvi church, along the lake, to the downtown "mall," through places I used to live and I stopped by Halpa-Halli at the end to get some Geisha (Finnish chocolate) and Jaffa (Finnish Fanta). It was very nice to sit and look out over the lake after the long bike ride.

On Friday, my host mom, Reija, Lilia, Reija's neice and I took a trip to the Ähtäri Zoo, a large zoo in the middle of nowhere and Keskinen, a  large shopping mall in the middle of nowhere. Before our long car ride began, we first stopped by the Alajärvi health center because Reija had to pick up a cake, or something of the sort because she helped someone out with something. We brought it back home, and Reija had a hard time fitting it in the fridge (it was a very large box), but once she did, we headed out.

First, we stopped by the Ähtäri Zoo where we went to see Lumi and Pyry, two pandas that arrived in Finland in January. We actually had to buy special tickets just to see the pandas. We only ended up seeing Lumi because Pyry was hiding somewhere and probably sleeping, but we had fun watching Lumi eat bamboo. Then we began the 3 kilometer journey around the zoo. We saw lots of different animals including but not limited to: a snow leopard, a bison, bears, deer, and some swans. Halfway through the 3 km long path, we stopped and got some ice cream, because there was a place to do so, and I got to have some Finnish pehmis ice cream, which I haven't had since I was in Finland the first time. We finished the whole loop and ended up at a farm area with horses, cows, sheep and chickens. It was funny when we heard the sheep baaing and Reija told Lilia to ask the sheep what hurt. (Mitä sulla on kipeä?) The sheep would respond with baa, which sounds a lot like pää (head) in Finnish.

After our visit to the zoo, we then made the drive over to Keskinen. It was only about 20-30 km away, so by the time we got there, Lilia hadn't woken up from sleeping. While Reija went shopping for shoes, I stayed with her in the car so that she could sleep. After waking Lilia up, we went and had some lunch before going around Keskinen and getting a few things and stopping by the play place in the mall. They had done some renovations, so it was fun to see what was new and what had changed (one of these changes was a mural of a giant unicorn at one of the entrances in case you were curious). On our way out, we ran into Reija's grandparents and talked to them for a bit.

Finally we began the long journey back. Upon our arrival, I finished up some packing and we all sat around for a while because we were all tired. Before I left to go and stay with my fourth host family for the next few days, I gave my third host dad, Teppo, a Father's Day card because Father's Day is tomorrow in the US (it's in November in Finland). Then we packed up my bags in the car and quickly stopped by the store to do some shopping. As we did, I saw Jaska outside and stopped and talked with him. Jaska was one of my hockey coaches from when I played hockey on JPK. It was nice to catch up and hear about what his kids, Elmeri and Heidi, who I played hockey with, are up to. Teppo finished his shopping and came out to talk for a bit before we headed out. He had bought me two Fazer bars during his shopping run, so I've gotten to enjoy those since then.

We arrived at my fourth host family's house, which is further outside of town and I got to see my host parents and host brother. I got chance to settle in and then go to sauna that evening. My fourth host family has an outdoor sauna which is just great. It was actually the first time that I got to go to sauna since my return to Finland, so it was awesome.

Today is Saturday and so far we've watched some soccer and went out on a shopping run where we got ice cream. On the way home, we took the long way and went around the Alajärvi lake. I went to sauna again and it was fantastic. Just another week before I head over to Sweden.